Microsoft may reveal their own tablet on Monday

Microsoft recently announced an event that will take place this coming Monday where they’re set to make a major announcement. According to someone the Hollywood blog The Wrap says has “knowledge of the company,” Microsoft is going to take the wraps off their very own iPad competitor.

Surely a single post on a blog that typically reports on box office and TV show news isn’t really a solid indication that Microsoft is really building their own tablet. But when All Things D’s Ina Fried — a respected veteran tech blogger — chimes in and reports that their sources are saying the same thing, things get a little more interesting.

Rumors of a Microsoft-built tablet have surfaced before, but they’ve typically rolled quietly past like a tumbleweed through a ghost town. This is the company that killed the Courier and Zune, after all. Are they really thinking that the third time will be the charm for their own second screen? If they are, why hasn’t DigiTimes run any posts with tips from their usually over-talkative “supply chain sources”?

Microsoft already has partners galore lined up to build Windows 8hybrids and tablets. We saw several at Computex, but one thing we didn’t see much of was Windows RT, Microsoft’s tag for Windows 8 for ARM hardware. Perhaps the major announcement is all about showing off the hardware their partners have been working on — and improvements to the software. There’s no Release Preview for the public to download, after all, so if glimpses are given prior to launch they’ll come from Microsoft, the OEMs, or leaks.

There’s also a possibility that Microsoft is going to show off Windows Phone 8. The timing would be ideal, what with WWDC just recently wrapping up and iOS 6 grabbing all the mobile OS headlines on blogs lately. Windows Phone 8 has popped up a couple times in the past week, however, with leaked images revealing deep Skype and SkyDrive integration. Tipsters have previously said Windows Phone 8 will arrive before the end of the year, and that’s rapidly approaching. June 18th might just be the right time to show off the next big mobile OS update — and how it’s going to work with the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem.